feelings were very much involved. She was too young, poor thing, and too simple, to know that Walter Dana was not at all a marrying man; he could not have afforded it, if he had wanted to ever so much. He was the sort of young man, you know, who never does manage to afford to marry, though in other respects he seemed to get on well enough. He had passed down through several generations of girls, and was now rather attentive, in a harmless, general sort of way, to the married women, and came to our dances.

"And then," said Minnie, "when he did not speak, and she was so suddenly left alone, and nearly penniless, after her mother's death, and Willie Williams was so much in love with her, and so pressing—though I don't believe he was ever in love with her more than he was with a dozen other girls, only the circumstances were such, you know, that he could hardly help proposing, he's so generous and impulsive. But he is not exactly the sort of man to fall in love with, and his oddities have evidently worn upon her; and now she feels with bitter regret how different her life might have been if she could have waited till her uncle left her this money. Walter has got on better, and might be able to marry her now, and she is young still—only twenty-nine. It is the wreck of two lives, perhaps of three. Willie is most unsuspicious, but should he ever find out——"

We all shuddered with pleasurable horror at the thought that we were to be spectators of a Russian novel in real life.

"I have seen them together," went on Minnie, "and their tones and looks were unmistakable. Surely you remember that Eliot Hall german he danced with her, the winter before her mother's death—the only winter she ever went into society; and I recollect now that he seemed very miserable about something at the time of her marriage, only I never suspected why then."

"How very sad!" murmured Emmie Richards, a tender-hearted little thing.

"It is sad," said Minnie, solemnly; "but love is a great and terrible factor in life, and elective affinities are not to be judged by conventional rules."

For my own part, I thought Willie Williams a great deal nicer and more attractive than Walter Dana, except, to be sure, that Walter did talk and look like other people. Perhaps, I said, things were not quite so bad as Minnie made them out. It was to be hoped that poor Loulie would pause at the brink. A great many such stories, especially American ones, never come to anything, except that the heroine lives on, pining, with a blighted life; and I thought, if that were all, Willie was not the kind of man who would mind it much. Very likely he would never know it.

Blanche Livermore said the idea of a woman pining all her days was nonsense. All girls had affairs, but after they were married the cares of a family soon knocked them all out of their heads. To be sure, Blanche's five boys were enough to knock anything out; but Minnie told us all afterward, separately, in confidence, that it was a little jealousy on her part, because she had been once rather smitten with Walter Dana herself. This seemed very realistic; and I must say my own observations confirmed the truth of Minnie's story. Mrs. Williams did look at times conscious and disturbed. One night, too, Tom and I called on them to make arrangements about some concert tickets. Willie welcomed us in his usual cordial fashion, saying Loulou would be down directly; and in ten minutes or so down she came, in one of her loveliest evening dresses, white embroidered crape, with a string of large amber beads round her throat.

"I am afraid you are going out, Mrs. Williams; don't let us detain you."

"Not at all," she said, with her usual indifference. "We are not going anywhere. I was waiting upstairs to see the children tucked up in their beds."

It seemed like impropriety of behaviour in no slight degree to fag out one's best clothes at home in that aimless way, but when in ten minutes more Mr. Walter Dana walked in, her guilt was more plainly manifest, and I shuddered to think what a tragedy was weaving round us. Only a day or two after, I met her alone, near nightfall, hurrying toward her home, and with something so odd about her whole air and manner that I stopped short and asked, rather officiously perhaps, if Mr. Williams and the children were well.

"Oh, yes; very—very well, indeed!" she threw back, in a quick, defiant tone, very unlike her usual self; and then, as I looked at her, I perceived to my dismay, that she was crying bitterly. I felt so awkward that I did not know what to say, and I stood staring, while she pulled down her veil with a jerk, and hurried on. I could not help going into Minnie's to ask her what she thought it could mean. Minnie, of course, knew all about it.

"She has been in here, and I have been giving her a piece of my mind. I hope it will do her good. Crying, was she? I am very glad of it."

"But, Minnie! how could you? how did you dare to? how did you begin?" I asked in amazement, heightened by the disrespectful way in which Minnie had dealt with elective affinities.

"Oh, very easily. I began about her children, and said how very delicate they looked, and that we all thought they needed a great deal of care."

"But she does seem to take a great deal of care of them. She has them with her most of the time."

"Yes; that's just it. She always has them, because she wants to use them for a cover. I am sure she takes them out in very unfit weather, and keeps them out too long, just for a pretext to be strolling about with him."

"You certainly have more courage than I could muster up," I said. "What else did you say?"

"I did not say anything else out plainly; but I saw she understood perfectly well what I meant."

"I don't see how you ever dared to do it."

"It is enough to make one do something to live next door to her as I do. You know that Walter Dana has not been at either of the two last dancing-classes. Well, it is just because he has been there, spending the whole evening with her alone. I have been kept at home myself, and have seen him with my own eyes going away before Mr. Williams gets home. I can see their front gate from where I sit now, and the electric light strikes full on every one who comes and goes."

I thought this was about enough, but we were to have yet more positive proof. One evening, soon after, we were all at the Jenkses'. It was a large party, and the rooms were hot and crowded. The Williamses were there, and Walter Dana; but he did not go near Loulie; he paid her no more attention in company than anybody else—from motives of policy, most probably—and she was even quieter than usual, and seemed weary and depressed. Mrs. Jenks asked her to sing, and she refused with more than her ordinary decision. "She would rather not sing to-night, if Mrs. Jenks did not mind," and this refusal she repeated without variation. But Mrs. Jenks did mind very much; she had asked some people from a distance, on purpose to hear Mrs. Williams, and when she had implored in vain, and made all her guests do so too, she finally, in despair, directed herself to Mr. Williams, who seemed in very good spirits, as he always did in company. It was enough for him to know that Professor Perkins and Judge Wheelwright depended on hearing his wife, to rouse his pride at once, and I heard him say to her coaxingly:

"Come, Loulou, don't you think you could sing a little?"

Loulou said something in so low a tone that I could not catch a word.

"Yes, dear, I know; but I really don't think there's any reason for it—and they have all come to hear you, and it seems disobliging not to."

Again Loulie's reply